Another Alice
by fieldmouse1312
Summary: Maybe the Red Queen wasn't the villain...
1. Prologue

Prologue

I remember smoke, I remember fire, I remember the little girl that I helped

raise, acted as her surrogate father, come barreling back a warrior ready

to take us all down. We broke that day, crumbled and fell, like the houses

of cards she had built as a child. When I knew her, she was little Alice,

now she is called the Black Queen, and the little girl that I thought I knew

is nowhere to be found.

The first day that I ever met Alice, she was nothing but a little baby. Pink

and delicate, with skin like petals and eyes like drops of liquid emerald.

She was delivered to us by Lepus White; a rabbit who has been our

messenger for as long as Wonderland has lived. Adeline, (or the Red

Queen, as her subjects called her) had demanded that she be brought to

us from the human world. For Adeline was a seer, gifted with glimpses

into the future through looking glasses. She had dreamed that a human

girl who would either be a great leader or be the cause of the end of the

age of Wonderland. Adeline searched for such a girl and had become

convinced that Alice was the one. She decided to take her, raise her as

her own, to teach her so that Alice could be Wonderland's next Queen.

At first, Adeline considered Alice as a royal duty, something that she

had to accomplish for the good of her kingdom. However, the moment

she first looked into Alice's eyes, she loved her, and vowed to protect her.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter one

The first few years of Alice's life passed somewhat uneventfully. Adeline

and I taught her all about wonderland, it's history, and how it's world

functioned just on the brink of madness. Whenever Adeline or I wasn't

around, Alice was taken care of by Felix, a gardener from the palace. Felix

taught her how to speak to the flowers, how to hear them sing and speak,

I taught her how to fight, and Adeline taught her how to lead. Alice was

growing into a strong confident girl who was shaping up to be a great

leader of Wonderland.

When Alice turned ten, it was clear she was becoming more and more

curious, exploring the palace and the world around her at every chance

she got. It was then that Adeline gave me a very important order. Adeline

was a seer, however this fact wasn't widely known. The only way that

Adeline was able to see the future was by looking into mirrors, and when

a vision came she was able to reach into the looking glass and trap it

there.

Adeline had amassed a hall filled with mirrors all holding prophesies,

this was where she summoned me to tell me my mission. As I walked in

Adeline looked unusually grave. Her golden eyes, usually so full of light

and life now lay dead on her face, like rusty coins. Even her hair, fiery red

and long, seemed limp and dull reflected a thousand times in her mirrors.

Slowly, she begins to speak, words falling of her lips like petals dropping

from a flower.

"Hatter, you must hide them, please just take them away."

"What?" I asked, stunned to hear the pain and fear in her voice. Adeline

almost never let her composure crack.

"The mirrors Hatter, the ones that tell of Alice and how she came to be

here, the ones that show Lepus taking her from the mortal realm. If she

ever saw them, realized that we stole her, it could set her on a dark path."

Suddenly, I understood, all her years of training would be for nothing if

she went dark. Even though we had kidnapped her, we hadn't kept her

prisoner, we'd raised her as our own. However, if Alice found the mirrors

and discovered she wasn't a Wonderling, that could be the thing that

pushed her out of the light and into the darkness, from which no one not

even Adeline could save her.

"Yes, of course my queen, what do you want me to do with them?"

"Take them to Pain and Panic, tell them to destroy the mirrors, tell them

it's a royal order." She said this decisively, like there was no room for

argument-there usually wasn't with Adeline. Still, I decided to try my luck.

"Adeline, if I may speak freely, I don't trust Panic, he's indecisive, and

Pain is even worse. If you're so set of having the mirrors gone, destroy

them yourself, you have the power-"

"No!" Adeline yells, suddenly, her whole face seemed to glow, a wind

whipped around the room shooting her fiery hair up in lethal spikes, and

her eyes glowed with fire, the memory of someone she no longer was.

"No, don't tempt me, I'm not that person anymore, just go, do it, destroy

the mirrors!"

Her voice reaches a crescendo and several of the mirrors shatter and

the glass flies around the room with the wind, faster and faster a sliver of

glass shoots by here and catches her cheek, slicing a tiny red line across

her face. The windstorm slows, the shards of prophecy fall to the ground,

she looked around as if waking from a dream and brings a hand to her

face, touching her cut and seeming shocked by the red on her fingers.

The collapses onto a chair and stares fixedly at the table for awhile.

Without another word, I scoop up the mirrors by the door and leave her alone with her demons.


End file.
